Appeal to president for release of journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani

Reporters Without Borders condemned a one-year prison sentence against journalist Abdulkarim Al-Khaiwani and a six-month ban against the weekly he edits, Al-Shura, appealing to Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh for his release. A Sanaa court sentenced Al-Khaiwani on 5 September on the basis of a complaint from the Yemeni information ministry. He was found guilty of giving support, through his newspaper, to a rebellion against the Sanaa authorities by Shiite leader Badr Eddin al-Hawthi and of defaming President Saleh. "Reporters Without Borders is dismayed at this very harsh sentence against a journalist and intellectual well known for his professionalism and outspokenness," the organisation said. "We remind the president that he regularly advocates respect for human rights and that this judicial decision is all the more astonishing given that he recently said he opposed prison terms for journalists." The editor of Al-Shura, who often tackles sensitive topics in Yemen, such as corruption, the use of oil revenue and the question of the succession for the head of state, was taken straight to prison after conviction. His lawyer, Jamal al-Goabi, told the judge immediately after the verdict that he would appeal against it. The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS) described the sentence as contrary to the Constitution. "They have no right to arrest him. They have no legal order from the prosecutor-general. His lawyer can take the case to an appeal court," said the YJS secretary-general Hafez Al-Bukari, in a release issued on 5 September. The union said it planned to organise a protest rally. Al-Shura condemned the trial as a premeditated act to silence it and lambasted political manipulation of the judiciary to this end. The paper also believed that the court itself had broken the law by trying Mr Al-Khaiwani while the courts were officially in recess by ministerial decree.